Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

pcworld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 229 posts

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#201

Post by null0pointer »

nneonneo wrote: post #178

I used Bing on mobile for a while, and I quickly noticed a horrible dark pattern: the mobile website has a little banner that pops up at the top prompting you to download their app, but this banner only loads in after a short delay (maybe half a second) after the rest of the page. In particular, it shows up right where the search bar was (pushing the bar downwards) - meaning that if I aim for the search bar right whe…

I bet it’s a bug but their metrics suffered when they fixed it so they rolled it back.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#202

Post by nine_k »

DoctorOW wrote: post #160
nine_k wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My primary search engine as of now is DDG, Their results are mostly fine (and powered partly by Bing). When their results are not good enough, I ask Google; often, but not always, it's better. For some other kinds of queries, Google fares notably worse than DDG, likely because SEO tricks are disproportionately directed against Google, and not always work against other search engines as effectively.

DDG uses Bing behind the scenes.

Yes (as mentioned), but not only: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources...

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#203

Post by nine_k »

noman-land wrote: post #172
nine_k wrote: post #102

— Hey, waiter! That cup that you've brought me, is it tea or coffee? — Sorry, sir, you mean you cannot tell by the taste? — I can't. — Then what difference does it make?

It makes a difference because if I drink coffee I'll die. Since you know nothing about me, how about you let me decide what I want and why.

It's a joke, and not a serious dialog, exactly because there may be a difference (not necessarily life and death, but maybe the price), but it fades beside the fact that the drink is so bad that its taste is incomprehensible.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#204

Post by kbelder »

stemlord wrote: post #176
ballenf wrote: post #8

I bet this is 100x+ more effective at keeping people on Bing than anything else MS has tried. Same idea as knock-off brands with labels and designs inspired by the name brand. People may eventually realize they're not on Google, but probably only after being not displeased in Bing's results. If they have a bad experience, oh well, they were planning on using google anyway.

Bing is a lot better than google for adult content. Bing actually has pretty neat image search tools

I consider Bing better in some areas, and equivalent in most others. Their image search is definitely better. Text search is... well, not good, but not any worse than Google.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#205

Post by pjmlp »

mrayycombi wrote: post #191
philistine wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point the events you’re describing are decades ago. To me they are as relevant to the Google and Microsoft of today as saying that Apple is not to be trusted because they messed up the Performa line. Not irrelevant, but those company are faceless, far bigger, far more insidious than when the events you describe happened.

It's only past history if they stop doing it. If you try to download and install chrome they do the same visual obfuscation, hide the button, and deceptilink you to use their browser. Nothing has changed bro. Open your eyes. They never repented.

Indeed starting by FOSS folks talking about the man, while complaining that no one from big tech returns anything, even though they play by the rules of the licensing.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#206

Post by pjmlp »

garciasn wrote: post #80
IncreasePosts wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will help determine if you're cheap. How much money have you saved/made through the rewards points stuff?

Far less than the time saved had they received Google's results instead of Bing's inferior ones.

Google no longer provides anything useful, to the extent they were famous for.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#207

Post by norman784 »

unsignedint wrote: post #117
norman784 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are Google results good? I stop using Google years ago because of the garbage results (a lot of spam sites that were just serving data crawled from Github and other sites).

I've had my issues with Google ever since they ran a series of ads pretending to be for Blender but actually linking to a scam site. (I’m not sure if it’s gotten better since then.) While I do occasionally come across questionable ads on Bing, they’re definitely much less frequent. For what it’s worth, I’ve switched to using Edge as my browser as well, largely because Google refuses to address one of the most frustra…

> Specifically, Google forces external links to open in the last-used profile, rather than letting you choose, whereas Edge allows you to customize this behavior.

This is a neat feature, I used browserosaurus for a similar behaviour, but also that means I have multiple browsers open, one basically for each profile.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#208

Post by Dylan16807 »

quink wrote: post #88
jjcm wrote: post #82

Disclaimer - I used to work on Bing like... 8 years ago. There's probably some debate around whether this is nefarious or genius, but I'd lead towards the later. "google" has always been one of the number one search terms, and the amount of people who would open chrome, search for google in the address bar, then open google in the google search results, then do their search, was wild. There's a very large percentage…

> They likely don't care what search engine they're using That's nothing, for our next iteration our navigation system will take you to the nearest Woolworths because they've got a commercial partnership with us even though the customer quite clearly said 'Coles'. It's likely they don't care.

If you want to make it more accurate, the car started in the Woolworths parking lot or something. But that doesn't capture many of the other aspects. Hmm.

My best attempt at this car analogy is more like... you walk over to some idling Lyft drivers and say you need an Uber to Coles. And then one of them drives you to Coles instead of driving you to the nearest Uber idling spot.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#209

Post by Dylan16807 »

noman-land wrote: post #172
nine_k wrote: post #102

— Hey, waiter! That cup that you've brought me, is it tea or coffee? — Sorry, sir, you mean you cannot tell by the taste? — I can't. — Then what difference does it make?

It makes a difference because if I drink coffee I'll die. Since you know nothing about me, how about you let me decide what I want and why.

Then it was pretty foolish of you to just say "I can't." with no elaboration when the waiter asked about telling by taste. Well, either foolish or a deliberate bait so you could berate him more easily. Neither option looks good.

If you wouldn't have answered like that, then the story isn't about you.

Re: Microsoft disguises Bing as Google to fool inattentive searchers

#210

Post by tim333 »

londons_explore wrote: post #61

This is partly preying on the fact googles 'doodles' weaken their brand/trademark. Back when every google doodle clearly had the word "Google" in, that was okay. But often now, the doodles are just some random picture. At that point, there is no brand recognition to their homepage beyond a blank white background and centered search box, which microsoft has copied here because those elements alone are not enough to fo…

In some ways it weakens their brand in that maybe it's easier to pretend to be them but in others it makes people feel good about them. I like the doodles.
Post reply on HN